The Muggle Wireless
by belladonna803
Summary: Written for the RonHermione MovieQuote!Fic Challenge on Checkmated. Amid searching for clues for the Horcrux hunt, Ron finally makes his move.


"Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind." _The Princess Bride._

A/N: The wireless-as-a-magic-detector theory is kind of borrowed from the original _Silent Hill_ video game (which I have never scored a good ending on, lol). Dedicated to my Mom-Mom Mary, who always encouraged my love of reading and whose kitchen was always as warm and welcoming as Molly Weasley's. I miss you. Originally written for the Ron/Hermione Move Quote!Fic Challenge on Checkmated.

_Scratch, scratch, scratch, flick._

_Scratch, scratch, scratch, flick. _

Ron yawned for what felt like the hundredth time and blinked the fatigue from his eyes. He, Harry and Hermione had been holed up in his room all morning doing Horcrux research using the few promising books that Hermione had managed to find so far. True to form, she was the only one who appeared to be doing any actual research at the moment. The only noise in the room came from her, in fact, with the steady sound of her arduous note-taking and page-turning. Ron had stopped reading nearly an hour ago, and had instead taken up counting the number of times Hermione had glanced at him, and the number of times Harry had shaken his head like he'd been Confunded.

_Fourteen_. Ron covered his mouth with his free hand to hide his grin. Fourteen tick marks on his parchment for Hermione. Of course, if he'd bothered to count how many times he'd looked Hermione's way to see if she was looking _his_ way, there'd be no space left for the six check marks he had jotted down for Harry.

Ron peeked at Hermione again to find her looking at Harry. And she was wearing her shrewd "Let's talk about Personal Things" face. Just as she opened her mouth to seemingly do just that, Ron tapped her foot with his.

"No," he mouthed, discreetly shaking his head when she looked over at him. _Fifteen_. She gave him a protesting look but he widened his eyes at her in pleading. She pursed her lips, but nodded in concession. _Thank God_.

Harry snapped his book shut and shook his head violently, shoving his glasses up on his forehead and pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. _Seven_. "Looking for clues is all well and good, but I still don't know how we're going to find the damn Horcruxes once we find out where they actually are." Hermione looked puzzled, a sight which made Ron want to snigger. He covered it up with a cough.

"What do you mean?" she asked, lowering her quill.

Harry blinked at his hands in his lap, clenching and unclenching them distractedly. "When we were in that cave, Dumbledore…well, he could just feel the traces of magic that Voldemort had left behind. With his bare hands." He flung himself backward onto the camp bed, which bounced slightly. "I can't do that! Say we find a Horcrux. How will we get to it? How will we know exactly where to look? Dumbledore pulled a chain out of thin air…how am I going to do that?"

Ron pinched his bottom lip between his fingers, pondering the question. Harry was right, even with the three of them working together, they didn't have that kind of power.

"Well, what was he sensing, exactly? Did he tell you?" Hermione leaned forward, her book and parchment forgotten on the bed beside her.

"Something about concealment. He said he could feel the traces of the concealment of Dark magic."

"What about a Secrecy Sensor?" asked Ron, absentmindedly rubbing his ribs where Filch had always seemed to like to poke the bloody thing all the time.

Hermione shook her head. "That's a good idea, Ron, but I don't think it'll work. We should probably buy one just in case, but I'm sure Voldemort would have thought of a way to hoodwink something as simple as a Secrecy Sensor."

_Damn_. _She's probably right_. _Who am I kidding? She's nearly always right_! Ron scratched his neck, searching his brain for something, anything. "What about something the Muggles use? How do they hide things they don't want found?"

"No, that won't work," said Harry, wryly. "Muggles don't really have anything that would work like that, as far as I know. And besides, magic always makes Muggle things go haywire, doesn't it?"

Ron looked over at Hermione, who seemed to be having several brain waves at once. _And there she goes. Next comes the incoherent muttering, followed by a leap off the bed, and a run to the Li—wait, but we don't have a Library._

She stood from the bed, and indeed started muttering to herself, running a hand through her bushy curls. "But that would work…mine went all wonky, even though they warned me it would…but there'll be loads of them down…and I'm sure he wouldn't mind if we borrowed…" She stared out the window for a moment, then turned abruptly and ran for the door. "I've got an idea!" Hermione shouted over her shoulder at them as she bolted out of the room.

"Y'know," said Harry, staring at the door as it closed with a creak. "She really is scary when she gets like that."

Ron laughed nervously. "You wanna know what's scary? I think I actually understood that!"

Harry considered him with a peculiar expression on his face. _Oh no, here it comes_. "That," he said, laughing for the first time in days, "doesn't surprise me one bit, Ron."

_Wanker_. Ron scowled, but followed it up with a sheepish grin. "Yeah, I reckon it doesn't." They looked at one another, and Ron could tell that Harry wanted to say something, but didn't seem quite able to come up with the words. Instead, he smiled and gestured with his head in a style reminiscent of the one Ron had given him in May. That same one in which Ron, though a bit shell-shocked to see his best mate actually kiss his baby sister, had thought, _S'okay. Go on_.

"I'm gonna go and help her. If I'm right, she's gone into Dad's work shed, and something's liable to fall on her in there. It's a mess." Ron strode toward the door, pointedly ignoring the snort that had come from Harry's direction.

Once down the stairs, Ron hurried out the door, leery of the boisterous cackling noises coming from the mass of women who were packed into the sitting room like Flobberworms. _Avoid the Veela, avoid the Veela!_

He breathed a sigh of relief as he shut the kitchen door behind him. The warm summer sun was high in the sky as he made his way to his dad's work shed, which was where he was sure that Hermione had headed. He pulled open the door to find her bent over a box of wireless sets in various stages of disrepair.

"I knew it!" he said loudly as he entered, causing her to shriek and drop what she'd been holding.

Hermione pursed her lips at him. "Good lord, you scared me! Why did you shout like that?" She bent back down to retrieve a wireless that appeared to be in fairly decent condition.

"Sorry," he said, though he was enjoying the flush that was creeping its way down her neck. "Thought you'd be in here."

"Yes, well, what you said gave me an idea. I think that we'll be able to detect those traces of magic that Harry was talking about with a Muggle device. When I got my Hogwarts letter, I was told that Muggle electronic devices would not work in a magical environment, but of course I had to test that theory out for myself, so I packed my wireless along in my trunk. When I tried it out, all it did was make these horrible squealing sounds." She paced back and forth in front of the box, clutching the wireless to her chest. "I'll bet that the same will be true of Voldemort's Concealment Charms. I'll have to do some tests, but I really think it could work."

Ron approached her slowly, stilling her movements with a hand on her shoulder. "I know," he said, grinning down at her. "For once, I understood your babbling." She looked up at him with wide eyes, a smile at the corners of her lips, her chest rising and falling quickly. Suddenly, it all clicked into place. Now was the time to act on the urge that had plagued him for ages, since before he'd understood why his stomach did back flips every time she touched him. Now was the moment to finally kiss her, to show her that he fancied her like mad, that he was ready to take that step with her, come what may.

He lifted his hand to her cheek and brushed a stray strand of hair away from her lip that had clung there in her excitement. _So beautiful_. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, he bent down and captured her lips with his. Her breath left her in a rush against his face, and she gasped into his mouth as he deepened the kiss, savoring the sensation of doing what he had wanted to do for so long.

A voice from the doorway startled them. "Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure." Fred said with a raised hand, as he, George, and Harry stood agog in the doorway. "This one left them all behind." George grabbed an old dress form and twirled it about, pretending to kiss it passionately.

"Sod off, you two!" said Ron angrily, stepping in front of Hermione. It was bad enough that they took the mickey out of him for every damn thing he'd ever said or done. There was no way in hell he was about to let them torment her as well.

"Aw," said Fred, sniggering and clutching at his chest dramatically. "Straight to the heart! You've bested us, Ronnie, who'd have thought it?" George grinned appreciatively, but remained strangely silent.

Ron took a step forward, to do what, exactly, he wasn't sure. Hermione stopped him, however, with a hand on his arm. "Out of my way, Ron," she said in a quiet and dangerously calm voice. His eyes lit up like fairy lights as he stood aside to allow her to walk past. The expression she wore actually came in several flavors, but the intent of each was the same. Fred and George were in for a very nasty brand of Hermione's revenge. _Oh, this is gonna be good_!

Apparently Harry recognized the look, too. "Guys, you'd better go," he said, turning to face them. "The last time Hermione looked like that, she was keeping Rita Skeeter prisoner in a small unbreakable jar."

Fred and George nodded to each other rather jauntily and Disapparated. Or, at least, one of them had. George stood and looked at them, expressionless, and looking quite unnatural without Fred by his side. Ron felt, rather than saw, Hermione's ire at what George might mean by staying behind, and gripped her shoulder firmly. But he wasn't sure which he preferred more; keeping Hermione from hexing George, or seeing what she'd unleash on him.

George stood there silently for a moment longer, then, unbelievably, his lips curved up into a small grin. "Good on you," he said with a wink, then, _CRACK_! He was gone.

Ron stared at the spot where his brother had stood, agog. "Well, that was—"

"Completely unexpected," finished Hermione.

"Yeah," added Harry, and the three of them looked at one another for a few beats before breaking out into nervous laughter.

Harry gestured to them, Ron's hand still firmly attached to Hermione's shoulder, and smiled sheepishly. "So, you two are, er, _you two_ now."

"Oh, very eloquent, Harry," teased Hermione, reaching up to place her hand over Ron's larger one. Ron's smile widened.

"Well, you know what I mean." Harry's smile softened, and he looked each of them in the eye, in turn. "I think it's great."

Before Ron could react, Hermione launched herself at Harry, smothering him. "Oh, Harry!"

He patted her on the back, glancing up at Ron with an amused expression. "Hey, that wasn't an invitation to choke me to death!"

Ron stood and looked at the two most important people in his life and reflected on how much had changed over the last year. A younger, less mature Ron would have been jealous of such a display, but now he saw it for what it was: two friends who cared a great deal about each other, and nothing more. Harry wasn't a threat because Hermione didn't fancy Harry. She never had. By some stroke of luck, she fancied Ron. His cheeks began to ache from smiling.

Hermione stepped back from Harry and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve, giggling quietly. "Well, since you're here, let me show you what I came down here for." She turned to reach for the wireless that lay forgotten on the work table, but Harry stopped her.

"Later," he said, moving toward the door.

"But, I think it could really—"

"Later, Hermione."

"But—"

"It can wait." He glanced from Hermione to Ron, pausing to turn the knob. "Take this time for yourselves." He held up a hand when Hermione made to protest again. "I mean it. The Horcruxes will still be there in the morning. You can tell me then. I didn't mean to interrupt at all, actually. I was just coming to warn you about _them_. I heard them talking on the stairs about how they'd seen the two of you come in here." He tapped the door frame with his hand for emphasis, and walked out, shutting the door behind him.

Ron looked at Hermione, the grin on his face turning slightly lecherous, despite his best effort to keep it otherwise. "Well, you heard the man," he said, moving closer to her so that she was pinned between him and the work bench.

She braced her hands against his chest, and he stared down into her eyes, which sparkled playfully. "Shut up, Ron."

"Make me."

"All right, then." Hermione grinned and snaked a hand into his hair, pulling him downward.

_No more interruptions_. Ron flicked his wand at the door, pausing only to cast an Imperturbable before losing himself in Hermione's kiss once again.


End file.
